At the present time, it requires four or five years to train air traffic controllers. The bulk of this time is spent on the job under the supervision of experienced controllers who are referred to as instructors. The length of time required for on-the-job training is primarily attributed to the limited number of available experienced air traffic controllers at a particular site (airport or en route center) that can spend the proper amount of time to tutor student controllers on a variety of different conditions. The instructors must teach student controllers to be responsible for controlling all aircraft located in their radar sector, which defines a geographic region.
In addition, there are numerous rules and procedures, such as site-specific letters of agreement and standard operating procedures, which student controllers must learn to ensure traffic safety. Consideration must also be given to safe and timely departures and arrivals, fuel economy, and noise pollution.
Student controllers must also learn to monitor dozens of arriving and departing flights under numerous types of traffic and weather conditions. Student controllers must learn to keep track of each aircraft's heading, altitude, and speed, while anticipating each aircraft's future flight path to sequence clearances intelligently and to avoid rule violations and collisions.
In this regard, the current procedures used by both instructors and student controllers to monitor aircraft and to provide clearances intelligently must always be monitored by their colleagues in an effort to insure that all controllers, both instructors and students, are capable of performing their jobs in a quality manner and living up to the standards required by the profession.
In an attempt to reduce the on-the-job training time of air traffic controllers and improve the one-to-one student/ instructor ratio, off-the-job training facilities have been established. These facilities are equipped with essentially the same radar equipment as that used by experienced controllers, which requires them to be linked to a main computer at a local airport or en route center. This equipment includes a radar screen which displays the geographical map of that particular site. This map typically consists of a film or slide which has been specially engraved for displaying geographic boundaries of the airport and runways, as well as natural boundaries such as mountains or bodies of water, on the radar screen. Navigational aids such as navigational markers and visual omnirange locations are also commonly displayed by the map. This type of equipment also makes it possible to replay actual radar data recorded during actual aircraft in-flight maneuvers.
One of the problems facing these facilities is that this radar equipment is extremely expensive, so availability is often limited. There is also a temptation to use this training equipment for actual air traffic control when the equipment used by air traffic controllers breaks down. Another concern is that students may be trained on equipment that may soon become obsolete.
Off-the-job practice sessions at these facilities typically include simple air traffic scenarios generated on the student's radar display. These simple scenarios, however, do not provide training for student controllers under many differing conditions. Moreover, aside from their simplicity and although actual radar data may be replayed at these facilities, these scenarios do not provide adequate "real-life" experiences to help train student controllers or to provide adequate practice for more experienced controllers.
The scenarios that are stored in the main computer at a local airport or en route center usually involve complex programs which take into account the particular geographical features of, and site-specific rules and procedures for that airport or en route center. Unfortunately, access to these programs is often interrupted during times when air traffic is heavy because students are directly competing with experienced controllers for computer time.
Another limitation of these facilities is that they are restricted to teaching the students rules for that particular site only. Reasons for limiting training to that particular site include the expense of obtaining a new map and extensive reprogramming of scenarios for that new site. Problems also occur when there are changes in navigational aids for a particular site. In other words, the present training facilities do not have the capacity for training students for different sites or for retraining controllers before they are transferred to new sites. A further disadvantage of existing systems is that during training sessions without an instructor present, students are generally limited by their current knowledge of the numerous rules and procedures.
As a result, independent simulators have been developed to provide student controllers with ample time to learn off-the-job how to perform their required tasks. One example of such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,949,267 entitled "Site-Selectable Air Traffic Control System" to Gerstenfeld et al.
Typically, the traffic scenarios stored on the main computer at a local airport or en route center, or in the system such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,949,267, allow students to practice giving clearances to aircraft projected on their radar displays by verbally communicating with another person acting as a pseudo pilot. The pseudo pilot in each case responds to the verbal commands or clearances of a student controller by entering the commands into the computer by way of a keyboard. The pseudo pilot then verbally acknowledges the student controller in a manner that is similar to a pilot's response. In complex situations, two pseudopilots may be necessary to respond to the rapid verbal commands of a single student controller. Requiring pseudopilots for the training process has obvious disadvantages including the need to increase the number of individuals present during student training.
The traffic scenarios typically stored in the main computer at an airport or en route center or in any other existing off-the-job training facility are designed to test student controllers and experienced controllers based upon a given level of skill. Thus, experienced controllers are able to practice using more complex scenarios than novices. However, with such systems, even the most experienced controller cannot practice using scenarios generated from "real-life" or actual flight information which would provide for the most realistic scenarios possible in a training system.
Present practice requires that in the event of an accident or "near-miss" (hereinafter referred to as an incident) involving aircraft, radar data corresponding to the flight pattern of an aircraft involved in the incident and voice transmissions of pilot/controller communications must be analyzed by highly trained individuals to determine the cause of the incident. This task of combining communications data with radar data to determine, if possible, the cause of an incident requires tremendous effort.
Recreating events prior to an incident requires, in part, an analysis of the radar data corresponding to the aircraft. In other words, a highly skilled individual must plot, using the radar data, the flight path of the aircraft on a map which depicts the area surrounding the incident. Depending upon the individual circumstances, this analysis alone can take many man hours. To reduce time spent during this portion of accident analysis, the conventional radar systems of air traffic computers may be used to replay the radar data of the aircraft. However, combining the radar data and voice transmissions further complicates this reconstructive process. Additionally, there is no known system which can automatically combine radar data and voice data for purposes of performing incident analysis.
Furthermore, there is no present method of monitoring the radar data and in-flight voice transmissions to determine, in advance, whether an incident is likely to occur in the future and to alert controllers and pilots of the imminent danger. Such a method would require an analysis of all possible future aircraft traffic patterns based upon the aircraft's present flight path, the controller's experience, and a study of the rules and procedures discussed above. This analysis cannot presently be done by controllers or their computer facilities.
It is an object of this invention to generate, using actual flight information, air traffic scenarios for an automated air traffic control simulator which interacts with a user to simulate air traffic scenarios at a selected site (en route or terminal) while providing expert analysis of the scenario to the user.
It is another object of this invention to provide an automated monitor of air traffic at a selected site (en route or terminal) while providing users with expert instruction.
It is still another object of this invention to provide such a system for producing a dynamic simulation of an air traffic scenario based upon actual flight information that can be varied for teaching different procedures at a selected site.
It is a further an object of the present invention to monitor controller/pilot communications and radar data corresponding to the pilot's aircraft to prevent accidents and near-misses.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a means of analyzing radar data and controller/pilot communications in the event of a near-miss or accident.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a system which operates independently of the actual equipment used by air traffic controllers, thereby making that equipment available full-time for actual air traffic control.
It is still another object of this invention to provide an air traffic control training system that does not require pseudo pilots.
It is yet another object of the present invention to monitor the activities of a controller with respect to each aircraft for which he is responsible, to confirm that the controller is acting in accordance with regulations and to provide expert instruction when necessary.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a playback or rewind feature to aid the user when analyzing scenarios.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a means of replaying events, including controller/ pilot communications and radar data to provide users during training the ability to try different scenarios and view the outcome of these scenarios.
Additional objectives and advantages of the present invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and in part will be obvious from that description or ma be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by the methods and apparatus particular pointed out in the appended claims.